Reuters reported recently that as China advances rapidly in robotics, artificial intelligence and new energy vehicles, more foreign investors, executives and entrepreneurs are traveling to China to see the speed of technological innovation and its industrial application up close.
Groups of foreign investors are joining multi-day China tech tours, visiting companies and factories across the country. Such tours typically go to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Hefei, focusing on new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Amid intensifying global technology competition, China is attracting more foreign tech and business people. The head of a market research firm said foreign companies once saw China mainly as a production base and consumer market, but now more see it as an object of study and learning -- a shift that was not obvious a few years ago.
Bertrand, CEO of the Global Shipping Business Network, who joined a robotics and emerging technology tour, said it is hard to truly understand the scale, speed and depth of China's technological innovation without walking into Chinese factories.
A firm providing tech tours to foreign companies said enquiries are up about 50 percent year on year, mainly from Europe and Singapore, and it now arranges more than 100 one-day factory visits for foreign clients each month.
Interest from European executives is particularly evident. Many arrive with a learning mindset, hoping to understand what Chinese companies' experience offers and how to scale AI applications.
Reuters noted that China's capabilities in advanced manufacturing, supply chains and rapidly turning new technology into products are drawing global attention, with many U.S. founders and investors also visiting.
An American manufacturing consultant based in Shenzhen said supply chains remain a very practical issue for companies genuinely developing hardware. Many U.S. robotics firms source components and hardware from China, and decoupling supply chains is extremely difficult.
Shenzhen has become a key destination for foreign tech founders, with AI and robotics entrepreneurs coming to find component suppliers and prototype manufacturers. Founders shuttling between Silicon Valley and Shenzhen also share sourcing information on batteries, displays and other components through online communities.
The consultant said some founders use visa-free entry to come to Shenzhen specifically to find partners able to build prototypes of next-generation products -- a sign of Shenzhen's shift from a low-cost manufacturing center to China's tech innovation frontier.
A European entrepreneur who has lived in Shenzhen for 11 years said he now receives visit requests from foreign startup founders almost daily. "It is hard to find another place in the world like Shenzhen that embeds technology so deeply," he said.
